Before The Half-Shut Eye
by RaymondShaw
Summary: "...all that emerges is a feeble moan, a sigh – a prayer: '…Katrina…' " Movieverse. A piece on, as the James Thomson poem, "the dreams that wave". Studies Ichabod's delirium and nightmares following Brom's death. Can be considered complete in and of itself, though scant additions are intended.


**_A pleasing land of drowsy head it was:_**

 ** _Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye..._**

 ** _[_** ** _James Thomson, 'The Castle of Indolence', 1748]_**

* * *

Darkness.

Light.

Sound.

 _…_ _So very far away…_

A strange, smothering heat…

Voices…no, a single voice –

 _Why is it so hard to hear?_

– hushed and murmuring, ringing faintly in his ears; muffled and indistinct as if issuing from the end of a long, black tunnel…

"…remarkable. A wound like this should have killed him...but it needs no stitch, and there's hardly loss of blood…"

 _…_ _Him…Who…?_

Shadows flitting by – their writhing shapes weird and twisted – dancing impishly on the back of his closed eyelids; swirling, melting dizzyingly into a dense grey haze –

– dragging him down…down:

 _A covered bridge, painted silver by moonlight, wreathed in hoary fog –_

 _The sight of it fills him with a nameless dread; try as he might, he cannot place it, cannot shake the emotion's clammy grip –_

 _A horse's ghostly neigh sounds suddenly in the distance, floating to him on the misty air –_

 _Terror floods him, clutching at his heart with icy fingers:_

 _The Horseman comes._

 _Desperate, he makes for the bridge –_

 _But a peculiar lethargy clings to his limbs, as though they labour through water, and he advances so slowly…too slowly –_

 _Behind him, the chilling ring of a sword drawn from its scabbard, loud in its appalling closeness –_

 _(No…)_

 _Though the safety of the bridge's mouth now looms before him he cannot flee, his legs paralyzed and turned to lead –_

 _(No!)_

 _In the thrall of an unknown devilish power his mind lolls, slack and helpless, as he is compelled to turn –_

 _(NO!)_

 _–_ _turn on the spot to face his Death._

 _Brandishing smoking steel, it glides – stalks – toward him; nearer, nearer! until he can see every tortuous twist in the leatherwork of the ghastly armour, his gaze travelling upwards –_

 _(Oh, God!)_

 _The gruesome spectre has no head._

 _Transfixed by horror, only his eyes move to track the hellish blade as it swings upward; higher, higher –_

 _–_ _and arcs down._

Ichabod Crane scrabbles his way back to consciousness with a wordless gasp; heart galloping and breathless, panting hoarsely, wild glazed eyes flying open onto –

 _The crumpled corpse of a brawny young man, cleaved in two, lying in its own blood on the rough wooden planks –_

Sheets, smooth and cool; a small white bed…a little room, bathed in the wavering halo of candlelight –

 _Brom! Father in Heaven…_

He struggles to rise, fighting the woozy blackness at the corners of his vision –

A sharp, stabbing pain erupts abruptly in his left shoulder, arresting his efforts, stealing the breath from his straining lungs –

 _It BURNS! Oh! How it burns…!_

Searing black claws at him –

 _A smoldering devil blade of wicked argent glow, thrusting forward swifter than a striking snake –_

 _–_ _slicing, carving into his flesh; nerves laid bare and raw –_

 _–_ _the white-hot, ice-cold agony of hellfire pierces him through and through –_

 _–_ _somebody…someone screams, shrieks in torment –_

 _Our Lady of Mercy…is that himself?_

Words. An older gentleman's…The…Doctor…?

"…you must be still. The fever is on you…"

 _…_ _Yes…_

His strength has deserted him; the fire scorching the gash to his shoulder pulses in his veins, courses through his aching body –

He collapses, utterly spent, onto the thin pallet; drenched in a sickly sweat that plasters his thick unruly hair to the nape of his neck in soaked raven curls, writhing against the raging flames and the flickering images that assault him –

 _The ear-splitting crash of demonic thunder –_

 _(…A cherubic apparition of flowing flaxen curls and rosebud mouth, arrayed in silk brocade of blushing cherry blossom…)_

 _"…_ _Wait! He's not after you – "_

 _("The Pickety Witch, the Pickety Witch; who's got a kiss for the Pickety Witch?")_

 _" –_ _I'll get him!"_

 _("…Pardon, Miss, I am only a stranger…")_

 _The deadly clash of steel on scythe –_

 _("…Then have a kiss, on account…")_

 _A lightning flash blazes across the sky, turning night bright as day – close! too close –_

 _(…Oh! the sweet, supple softness of the cupid's bow lips on his pallid cheek…)_

 _The grotesque sliminess of loathsome scarlet gore as it splatters onto his brow – his chin – his eyes –_

 _(…The intensity of those deep chestnut orbs,_ _the luxuriant lashes so full;_ _so large – near, so near…)_

 _The hideous empty sockets of the Western Witch, like to the ancient barren hollows of a gnarled and wizened tree –_

 _(…A doe's laughing eyes…warm and loving, coal-black as his own – Mother…)_

 _–_ _The hole he chopped into the rotten wood of the Tree of the Dead, gaping bloody like an open wound –_

 _(…Her long, delicate fingers_ _cradling the tiny child's hands of his boyhood_ _: the thaumatrope whirls…faster, faster – the cardinal in the cage…)_

 _–_ _the clouded, murky stare of the severed heads hidden in its bowels –_

 _(…Mother's eyes, huge, frightened, glaring at him from a slat in metal…shifting, blurring – not Mother's, now, but that dazzling nymph's – )_

 _–_ _Dear Lord! NO! – the Angel's golden crown has joined them –_

Spine arching, he cries out in intolerable anguish, Her name risen unbidden to his parched and swollen tongue –

– but all that emerges is a feeble moan, a sigh – a prayer:

"…Katrina…"


End file.
